This week brings another positive development in the struggle for trans equality; this time, it’s in the world of fitness. Last Friday, CrossFit founder and CEO Greg Glassman announced that trans athletes would be allowed starting in 2019 to compete in the fitness organization’s annual CrossFit Games. This is the right thing to do,” Glassman said at the event, according to Them. “CrossFit believes in the potential, capacity, and dignity of every athlete. We are proud of our LGBT community, including our transgender athletes, and we want you here with us.”

The announcement was made at an event held by LGBTQ CrossFit group OUTWOD (WOD is CrossFit-speak for “Workout Of the Day,” a term used by CrossFit for the exercise routines given to athletes). OUTWOD is overseen by fitness-oriented nonprofit group The OUT Foundation, and Alyssa Royse, an OUT Foundation member and CrossFit gym owner, worked closely with CrossFit’s leaders to make this policy change happen. “I think it’s important to realize that CrossFit is the largest fitness brand in the world, and where we go, others — we hope — will follow,” Royse told Them.

In spite of Royse’s comments, CrossFit is not the first athletic organization to allow trans athletes to compete in sporting competitions. In fact, despite a great deal of backlash at the time, the International Olympic Committee ruled in 2003 that transgender athletes could compete as their correct gender in the Olympic Games, provided “underwent hormone replacement therapy for at least two years prior to competition, had genital reconstruction surgery to reflect the gender with which they identified and changed their gender identity on all legal documents,” according to Excelle Sports. In 2015, the requirement for genital reconstruction surgery was dropped, in favor of a rule that trans athletes’ hormone levels were consistent with those of cis athletes of their gender.

Indeed, the fact that CrossFit had lagged so far behind other fitness organizations in this regard has led to legal action in the past. In 2014, trans athlete Chloie Jönsson sued CrossFit for refusing to allow her to compete as a woman in the the CrossFit Games. Her lawsuit was settled in 2015, and she told Buzzfeed she is happy with the change.

“CrossFit admitted they’re wrong and is making it right,” she said, saying she bore the organization no grudge. “There’s no reason to hold any negative feelings toward CrossFit. I’m just stoked for all of my trans brothers and sisters that we have the chance to compete.”

Technically, CrossFit has allowed trans athletes to compete before — but they forced them to compete as the sex they were assigned at birth. “Can you imagine if I had shown up to compete as the gender I was assigned at birth? That would be ridiculous,” said longtime CrossFitter Bennett Kaspar, a trans man who has wanted to enter the games in the past. In previous years, he’s participated in workouts his gym ran for athletes who were entering into the CrossFit games, but never even attempted to register for them himself. “I didn’t want to give my money to a company with a non-inclusive policy,” he told Them.

Kaspar was “incredibly excited” to hear that CrossFit had made this change. “To hear that it has become a reality, it’s a nice weight off the shoulders,” he told Them. “It feels like there’s one less thing on the to-do list in terms of advocating for trans people. Like, check — we got that one done.”

Related Stories

In a 27-0 vote yesterday, the Virginia High School League approved a new policy to allow transgender students to participate in sports programs aligning with the gender they identify with. But the language of the policy has been called some of the most restrictive in the country, requiring the student to have undergone gender reassignment [...]